Malware researcher Marcus Hutchins pleaded guilty to two counts of creating and selling banking malware, ending a long and protracted fight with US Attorney's Office.
Hutchins, British citizen, owner of a website and blog about malware and information security , was arrested in August 2017 when he was due to fly back to the UK after the Def Con security conference in Las Vegas. Prosecutors accused Hutchins of being involved in the creation of the banking Trojan Kronos. He was later released on $30 bail. Interestingly, a sympathetic hacker whom Marcus never met in real life contributed the amount for it.
A plea agreement was filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin court, where Hutchins had previously been charged. His trial was to continue later this year. Marcus agreed to plead guilty to distributing the Kronos Trojan, created in 2014, which was used to steal passwords and credentials from banking websites. He also agreed to plead guilty to the second count of selling the Trojan to another person. Now the young hacker faces up to 10 years in prison.
In brief Hutchins wrote on his website, "I regret these actions and accept full responsibility for my mistakes."
βAs an adult, I have since used the same skills that I abused a few years ago for constructive purposes,β says Markus. "I will continue to devote time to protecting people from malware attacks in the future."
Marcia Hofmann, an attorney for Makurs Hutchins, did not respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch, nor did Justice Department spokesman Nicole Navas.
Hutchins rose to prominence after stopping the spread of the WannaCry ransomware attack in May 2017, just months before his eventual arrest. The ransomware exploited a vulnerability in Windows systems believed to be developed by the US National Security Agency to compromise hundreds of thousands of computers. The attack was later attributed to North Korean-backed hackers.
The hacker found a non-existent domain in the WannaCry code - iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com. It turned out that the ransomware contacted him and encrypted the files on the computer only after he did not receive a response at the specified address. By registering a domain name for himself, Markus stopped the spread of WannaCry, which brought him some fame and glory. However, some people have expressed the opinion that Hutchins himself could be involved in the development of the ransomware, but this theory was not supported and was not supported by any evidence.
Source: 3dnews.ru